page_title: Doc Kauffman
section_title: Rickenbacker Legacy
hierarchical_section_title: Doc Kauffman / Rickenbacker Legacy
caption_attribution_description: English: Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts Model
context_page_description: Doc Kauffman was a lap steel guitar, electric guitar engineer, inventor & pioneer of the world's first patented guitar vibrola. The patent for "Apparatus for producing tremolo effects" was applied for in 1928 and officially granted to Doc Kauffman on January 5, 1932.
context_section_description: During the 1930s, Doc Kauffman served as chief electric guitars designer for Rickenbacker. Having invented and patented the first mechanical vibrato unit, Kauffman was able to implement his patented creation onto the Electro-Spanish Ken Roberts model as the instruments standard stock bridge.  This addition would earn the rank as the first vibrola ever to be equipped, as a standard stock-option, on an electrified guitar.  This would set precedence for the future development of electric guitars into the 1940s & 1950s.  Notably, the Fender Stratocaster and Bigsby vibrato tailpieces.
caption: Doc Kauffman Vibrola found on Ken Roberts Model
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